Blu-ray Movie Reviews

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
School of Rock
David Vaughn  |  Feb 19, 2013  | 
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Kicked out of his band and desperate for work, Dewey Finn intercepts a call meant for his roommate and lands an extended gig as a substitute teacher at Horace Green Elementary, a $15,000-per-year private school in the Northeast. The school’s uptight principal suspects something is amiss when the new teacher is less concerned about the students and is more interested in when the school day ends, but he gets the gig anyway. Dewey’s attitude changes when he hears the kids in their music class and realizes they have some serious potential if he can take them under his wing. He forms his own “classroom band” and involves the entire class with a costume designer, backup singers, security, and even a band manager with two goals in mind—to not get caught by the principal and to win the local Battle of the Bands contest.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Scooby-Doo 1 and 2 Collection (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Nov 14, 2010  | 
The Mystery Inc. gang reunites in Scooby Doo to find out what's behind the jinky-jittery goings-on at Spooky Island, the spring break hot spot run by Emile Mandavarious (Rowan Atkinson). Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed finds our heroes with their hands and paws full trying to find out why Coolsville is overrun with monsters the pals thought they'd defeated years earlier.

While Scooby-Doo is no Casablanca, these live-action recreations of the popular cartoon are harmless family entertainment. When my kids were younger the spooky monsters made them cringe, but now that they've matured a few years they laugh along with Mom and Dad.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Nov 12, 2010  | 
Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) falls for the girl of his dreams—literally. In order to win her heart he must battle her seven evil exes or die trying. Does he have the power to defeat them?

I'm a big fan of Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead), but this one is a little too quirky for my tastes. I liked how the sounds and graphics from video games were integrated into the picture, but I couldn't relate to any of the characters. Maybe I'm getting too old?

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse
Corey Gunnestad  |  May 13, 2016  | 
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I sometimes wonder if the filmmakers behind those cheesy science-fiction/horror B films of the 1950s ever believed that they were creating high art. Certainly films like Creature with the Atom Brain, Invasion of the Saucer Men, and I Married a Monster from Outer Space must have seemed pretty ridiculous to the moviegoers of the time too, don’t you think? And yet since then, those films have been elevated to a near-mythic cult status.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Se7en (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Sep 13, 2010  | 
With one week until retirement the last thing detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) needs is a serial killer on the loose in his city, but life isn't fair. Teamed with a young detective (Brad Pitt), the pair discover the killer is out to murder people he feels are guilty of committing one of the seven deadly sins—gluttony, lust, envy, pride, sloth, greed, and wrath. Can they get their man before Somerset turns in his badge?

David Fincher's resume includes many notable films like Fight Club, Zodiac, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but Se7en may be his best. His villain feels justified to mete out his vengeance as he sees fit given the sad state of society and Freeman's character shares many of his views but doesn't agree with his methods.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Seabiscuit (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  May 29, 2009  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/seabiscuit.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Based on the best-selling book by Laura Hillenbrand, <i>Seabiscuit</i> tells the true story of the horse that could and the three men who made him a winner&#151;owner Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges), trainer Tom Smith (Chris Cooper), and jockey Red Pollard (Tobey Maguire). With the nation suffering from the effects of the Great Depression, the undersized racehorse gives America something to cheer for.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Secretariat (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Jan 24, 2011  | 
Behind every legend lies and impossible dream. Witness the spectacular journey of an incredible horse named Secretariat and the moving story of his unlikely owner (Diane Lane), a housewife who risked everything to make him a champion.

Disney is never one to shy away from an inspirational sports story and while this doesn't live up to the magic of Miracle, it has a lot of heart and explains the struggles Penny Chenery had to endure to be a woman in a male dominate world. I'm sure there were some liberties taken with some of the facts to liven-up the story, but that's not uncommon in Hollywood. Regardless, the performances are very good, especially by Lane and John Malkovich, who plays the eccentric Canadian horse trainer.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Secrets & Lies
Josef Krebs  |  Jul 16, 2021  | 
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As a kid in England in the late 1970s, I loathed director Mike Leigh's BBC TV dramas about what seemed like the drab lives of dull, ordinary people because they lacked the glamour and drive of Hollywood classics. Years later, I became enthralled with the pathos of universal pain and struggle shown in Leigh's Secrets & Lies, a microcosm of real relationships and feelings that is as moving and massively encompassing as any film I've seen.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Self/Less
Thomas J. Norton  |  Apr 01, 2016  | 
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Damian Hale, an extremely wealthy and self-centered businessman (is there any other kind in the movies?), is in his late sixties and dying of cancer. But he’s found an escape in a secretive company that has developed a way to transfer the contents of someone’s brain into a younger, healthy human body. They call the process shedding. It succeeds on Damian, but with complications he didn’t anticipate.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Selma
Anthony Chiarella  |  Jul 31, 2015  | 
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Among the most anticipated and admired films of 2014, Selma depicts the epochal series of marches by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (David Oyelowo) in Selma, Alabama, which led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Brought to the screen with power and sensitivity by director Ava DuVernay, this Oscar-nominated docudrama features a host of inspired and often intimate acting and noteworthy musical selections, which include the Oscar-winning song “Glory.”
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Seven Pounds (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Mar 26, 2009  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/sevenpounds.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Ben Thomas (Will Smith) is an unremarkable IRS agent who has the power to change seven strangers' lives. But when he meets Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson), everything changes as he realizes he's in love with the beautiful woman. Should he alter his plan and seek personal happiness or continue the quest for his own redemption?

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Seven Years in Tibet - Blu-ray
Joel Brinkley  |  Jun 12, 2007  | 

Who can forget <I>Seven Years in Tibet</I>? In the early days of DVD, almost ten years ago, it was one of the first great releases. It offered stunning picture quality with video imagery that took full advantage of the top-of-the-line production values. The move is "panoramic." It shows vast Tibetan vistas, as well as exotic and colorful religious dress of the era – the late 1930s and early 1940s. Eventually, Sony even put out a "SuperBit" version, which was said to have even better picture quality.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Sex and the City 2 (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Oct 29, 2010  | 
What happens after you say "I do"? With three of the quartet married, how do they get out on the town and have a good time? They don't. Instead, the girls get together for a trip to Abu Dhabi when a wealthy sheik asks Samantha (Kim Cattrall) to visit his luxury hotel, hoping she will promote it in America. With her three best pals in tow, they jet off on a first-class trip to paradise away from the stresses of marriage, kids, and careers.

As a fan of the TV show and the first movie I thought I would enjoy spending more time with the characters I'd gotten to know over the years. Boy was I wrong. The script is pathetically weak and bloated and characters have lost their appeal as they've aged. Not their sex appeal, which is perfectly fine—it's their vomit-inducing narcissistic behavior that wears you out over the 146 minutes and the far-fetched storytelling doesn't help matters.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Sex and the City: The Movie - Extended Cut
David Vaughn  |  Sep 29, 2008  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/sexandthecity.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Four years after the end of the hit TV series <I>Sex and the City</I>, life continues for Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), Charlotte York (Kristen Davis), and Miranda Hobbs (Cynthia Nixon). Carrie and Mr. Big (Chris Noth) are taking their relationship to the next level; Samantha has moved from New York to Hollywood with her boyfriend of five years, Smith Jarrod (Jason Lewis); Charlotte is happily married to Harry (Evan Handler) with their three-year-old daughter; and Miranda is struggling through a less-than-happy marriage to Steve (David Eigenberg) in hell (aka Brooklyn).

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Sex Tape
Anthony Chiarella  |  Feb 04, 2015  | 
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Jay (Jason Segel) and Annie (Cameron Diaz) have lost the spark. The couple’s college sexcapades are a distant memory, as marriage and children have snuffed their sex drive… until, fueled by tequila shots, they decide to make a three-hour porno wherein they attempt every position in the classic handbook, The Joy of Sex. When Jay saves their video to his iPad, however, he mistakenly sends it to friends and family, then spends the remainder of the film trying to reverse his mistake. Jake Kasdan, who directed Diaz and Segel in Bad Teacher, completes the Power Trio here.
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